Wednesday, April 17, 2013

2013 Provincial Elections Look To Maintain The Current Political Deadlock In Iraq

Early voting for Iraq’s provincial elections began on April
13, 2013 with the security forces going to the polls. Like the last balloting
in 2009, this year’s will take place in fourteen of the country’s eighteen
provinces with Kurdistan following its own timetable, and Tamim being excluded,
because of its disputed territories. It is unclear as yet whether the 2013 vote
will be a game changer like the 2009 one was.

Members of Iraq’s Election Commission training for the 2013
vote (AFP)

The 2009 election was about issues, which resulted in
wholesale changes in Iraq’s local governments. In 2005, the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq (ISCI) and the Kurdish parties came out the big winners, in
part because the Sunni community largely stayed away from the polls. In
November 2004, the Muslim Scholars Association announced a boycott, citing the
American attack upon Fallujah. Insurgent groups made similar calls for Sunnis to not participate. The result was that only 2% of voters turned out
in Anbar, 17% in Ninewa, 29% in Salahaddin, and 33% in Diyala. That
benefited the Supreme Council and the Kurdish parties with the former walking
away with Diyala, and the latter with Ninewa and Salahaddin. The Supreme
Council also won Babil, Baghdad, Dhi Qar, Karbala, Muthanna, Najaf, and
Qadisiyah, while the Kurdish parties won Dohuk, Irbil, Sulaymaniya, and Tamim.
This was exactly what the Kurdish Alliance and the ISCI had talked about before
the voting, a Kurdish controlled north and a Shiite ruled south that could form regions to protect themselves from the insurgency. Instead, the two lists
proved horrible and corrupt administrators that were unable to deliver
security, services or development. By 2009, the public had enough. Large
numbers of Sunnis, including several insurgent groups came out, and they,
along with others voted out almost all of the ruling parties. Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law list took Baghdad, Basra, Dhi Qar, Karbala,
Maysan, Qadisiyah, and Wasit, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi’s Iraqi
Accordance Front won Diyala, and Salahaddin, while new parties like the
Awakening of Iraq and Independents, al-Hadbaa, and the Loyalty of Najaf came to power in Anbar, Ninewa, and Najaf respectively. Those new ruling parties
have proven no better at running Iraq’s provinces as the previous ones. If this
year’s election was about performance again, they would likely lose. Instead,
the politicians have been able to shape the debate to be about the protests in
Anbar, Ninewa, Diyala, and Tamim, and the sectarian politics they engender. The
Kurdish Coalition, the Sadrists, and elements of the now fractured Iraqi
National Movement have also brought up Maliki’s term as prime minister. For
example, the Sadr bloc and Speaker of Parliament Osama Nujafi’s National Assembly of Iraqis accused officers in the security forces of pushing their
units to vote for certain lists, implying Maliki’s State of Law. Unfortunately,
that looks to only be playing with their base, as many in central and southern
Iraq have rallied behind the premier in the face of what they see as Baathist
and insurgent led demonstrations.

The 2009 provincial balloting brought dramatic changes to
Iraq’s local governments, but this year’s vote looks to be maintaining the
current political status quo. Maliki’s State of Law will likely keep control of
most of southern Iraq along with Baghdad. The different elements of the Iraqi
National Movement are going to run against each other in Anbar, Diyala, Ninewa,
Salahaddin, and Tamim, and will split the vote between them. The Kurdish
Coalition will maintain its base in the northern governorates as well. There
doesn’t look to be any major realignment of the powers that be this year. Those
disaffected with that might vote for the Sadrists or Supreme Council or
independent lists, but many may also feel disillusioned, and simply stay away
from the polls. That will be another setback for Iraq’s developing democracy as
the ruling parties have not proven good at governing, yet remain in power. It
might take the 2014 parliamentary elections to really shake up Iraqi politics,
but that may just reshuffle the deck amongst Iraq’s parties once again instead
of bringing about any meaningful transformations like the last governorate
elections were able to do.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. I have written for the Jamestown Foundation, Tom Ricks’ Best Defense at Foreign Policy and the Daily Beast, and was responsible for a chapter in the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements. My work has been published in Iraq via NRT, AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News, and Ur News all in Iraq. I was interviewed on BBC Radio 5, Radio Sputnik, CCTV and TRT World News TV, and have appeared in CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq, Rudaw, and others. I have also been cited in Iraq From war To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassahn, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cocburn, and others. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com